Quick Links & Contacts

ACS
Office of Youth Development
212-361-1974/5

Office of Advocacy
212-676-9421

PYA Goals

EDUCATION
Alternative Schools
GED Programs
Scholarships & ETVs

HOUSING
Finding an Apartment
Emergency Services

JOBS
Summer Jobs

SEXUALITY
Morning After Pill info
1-888-NOT-2-LATE

HEALTH
Citywide Clinic List

MENTAL HEALTH
Suicide Hotline
212-673-3000

LifeNet Referrals
(24 hours)
1-800-543-3638 (English)
1-877-298-3373 (Spanish)
1-877-990-8585 (Mandarin/Cantonese)

SPECIAL RESOURCES
Hotlines (dating violence, housing, mental health)
GLBTQ Resources

ADVOCACY
General/Aging Out
In the Spirit of the Children 212-410-9801

Legal
Lawyers for Children
1-800-244-2540

Legal Aid (call the office in the borough where you lived when you first went into foster care)
Bronx: 718-579-7900
Brooklyn: 718-237-7100
Manhattan: 212-312-2260
Queens: 718-298-8900
Staten Isl.: 718-981-0219

Education/Special Ed
Advocates for Children
212-947-9779

Legal Aid Society’s Education Advocacy Project
212-577-3342

ETVs (Educational and Training Vouchers)
Featured Story

Finding My Father: My Dream Dad Turned Out to Be GayFinding My Father
My dream dad turned out to be gay.

By Dominick

I had a fantasy of what I wanted in my dream dad: He would be able to support himself and not be taking me in for the check. He would know how to make money and help me figure out how to have a successful career as an architect. He would understand that my past, which includes being beaten, humiliated, neglected and rejected, was not my fault.

My dream dad would listen and have patience with me. He would love me and respect me and I would love and respect him back. He would be there for me, forever.

Hoping for Adoption

I wanted a man in my life, a father figure, because I never had one. My real father left my mother before I was born. According to relatives on my mother’s side, he was a gang member who gave me 22 other half-brothers and sisters.

I desperately wanted to be adopted. But I had been free for adoption since I was 8 and my two adoptive placements both failed. At age 9 I was supposed to be adopted by a nice guy called Dave, but his other adopted son didn’t want me to move in.

When I was 10, my aunt Sandra and my uncle Willie, who surrendered me to foster care at age 6 due to family tension, said they would adopt me, but because they lived in Pennsylvania and I was in foster care in New York, things got complicated and they didn’t. My hopes were raised and then smashed. I bounced from one foster home to another. I never stopped hurting.

New Job, Nice Boss

I got a summer clerical job at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan the summer I was 15 and went to work for Richard Freeman, the associate director of psychiatry.

Richard was a quiet, calm white guy with fewer wrinkles than your average 40-year-old. All the people he worked with talked about how great he was. He turned out to be a great boss, too, because he never yelled at me when I made a mistake. . .

[read more]